The Polls and the Truth

Oct 16, 2012

RUSH: Debbie, I’m glad you called, DC suburbs, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. How are you?

RUSH: Good. Thank you.

CALLER: All right. I kind of wanted to — well, I do want to disagree with you about the polls being manipulated and they’re kind of un-manipulating them now to reflect what’s really going on, especially regarding women.

RUSH: Well, it’s with everybody, it’s just the women that happen to be reported today.

CALLER: Right, right, right. I disagree with you. I think that they have been reporting them fairly accurately as much as any of them. But I think what’s really going on is — first let me say, I live in a swing state, and I am fairly moderate, probably very moderate, compared to most of your audience, but there’s no other choice but to vote for Romney. I mean there’s really no other choice. I mean, I’m supporting him a hundred percent. So I think what’s going on is people are afraid to admit that they plan to support Romney because any time it comes up in casual conversation, social conversation, anything like that, the liberals are just so —

RUSH: Yeah, but wait a second, now. I know what you’re saying, Debbie, but a poll, they’re automated, aren’t they? They’re on the phone. Sometimes there’s a live person on the phone, and I understand people want to lie to pollsters, particularly when asked if they’re gonna vote for or against the first black president. It’s just easier to say, “I’m voting Obama ’cause there’s less grief.” But a poll is not taken out in public where there’s gonna be shouts of derision from angry liberals.

CALLER: Maybe they just aren’t willing then to have the conversation with themselves. I mean, if these are undecideds that are now starting to look at Romney, they just haven’t even been willing to go there themselves in their mind because, I’m telling you, I have a Romney sticker on my car, a Romney-Ryan, I was waiting for Ryan to get put on the sticker. So I got it the first day he was announced and they were on the website, and I’ve had multiple people come up to me and say, “You are so brave to have that sticker on your car. I’d be afraid I’d be run off the road.”

RUSH: I understand that. I totally understand that. I live in a state where people have that same fear.

CALLER: I just don’t know. You have a good point about the polls being, you know, private. But I just think that there is this mentality that you can’t even really express how you might feel, or even if you wanted to, say, have the discussion, the political discussion with someone, say you really were undecided.

RUSH: Here’s my point, and I understand fully what you’re saying. I know that polls are used to shape public opinion. A poll in April, a poll in June, the purpose of that poll, look at who’s doing these polls? The purpose of these polls is to create news, not reflect it. They’re not reflecting public opinion. They’re trying to shape it. This is what the media does. Some people don’t want to admit that, but it’s what they do. But when you get closer to the election, they do have their credibility to be concerned about. And something has to explain why the polls all of a sudden do this mad shift. I just don’t believe one debate did this. I don’t believe there have been that many undecided. Like you. You have been decided and firm in your resolve for months. You weren’t undecided.

This is not a climate where people can’t figure out what they’re gonna do. I mean, how in the world anybody’s undecided right now is beyond me, but there might still be some. It’s gotta be a pretty small number. But I think you’re right. I think people in certain circumstances will be afraid, especially if their opinion is anti-Obama or voting preferences for somebody other than Obama, there will be some reticence about saying so because they don’t want to get yelled at or vandalized or what have you, in the case of a bumper sticker or a yard sign or what have you. You’re totally right about that. I just don’t believe massive shifts like this in public opinion. I don’t think that many people change their minds that often, that dramatically, that many times, as these polls have reflected.

CALLER: I agree with you on that. I just wonder if it really is the poll people manipulating it, although Axelrod was on the phone to Gallup the next day, wasn’t he, when —

RUSH: Exactly. They’ve been on the phone with Gallup twice. Axelrod called Gallup twice to challenge their methodology when he didn’t like the number, and they changed, and they shifted, and the next series of polls reflected more favorable results for Obama.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: Look, a poll with a plus ten Democrat sample is manipulation. There isn’t an election in recent history where the Democrat turnout was 10% greater than the Republican turnout was, and yet we had three swing state polls two Fridays ago that showed just that. Now, you can talk to any pollster and they can tell you they can get any result you want. That’s why the polls that we never see, the internal polls that the campaigns run, those are the ones because they can’t afford to live the lie when it comes to public opinion polling and the results of it. And that’s why the internals, whenever you see somebody say White House internals, campaign internals, those are the ones you pay attention to, if you ever hear that. Anyway, Debbie, I appreciate the call. I know exactly what you’re saying. People are just now becoming more comfortable admitting what they have been intending to do for months. I think that’s a good point.